


Measuring the Stick

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, Smoking, height confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 18:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17986157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Johan never expected his height to cause such a confusion.Corvid is @silvenarts‘s, Egg is @greenghostlyjekyll‘s, and Joy is @just-log‘stw smoking (in a way)





	Measuring the Stick

Johan decided that doing something was not important. He was not doing anything in particular at all at the moment. Just gazing out the window, leaning on the sill, his long legs supporting him at a tilt. The babble of the other Joeys behind him was just a static, there and not, something comforting. Something easy to relax into. An unlit cigarette dangled from his fingertips, he occasionally blowing out a perfect 0 made of the blasted smoke, though the cancer stick had not touched his lips, nor was burning. He simply inhaled and exhaled, smoke ring, grainy noise. Routine. Normal. Gentle. So kind to his world weary, non existent, tired, wracked, body.

 

Until something changed, something subtle. Nothing bad. Just quiet voices near him. Speaking to him, possibly. He pulled himself out of his murky musings, to face… ah. It was Corvid. A pleasant surprise, much needed for his strung nerves. That was why he was doing this mockery of smoking in the first place, wasn’t it? But now, he had much better, much healthier, much sweeter things to attend to. Corvid, what a kind man. So gentle and wonderful, despite mistakes that may have been made. Johan made a mental note to go off with the man and hold his hand, perhaps pressing kisses to it now and again, and reassure him that everything will be well with him. That would be absolutely perfect.

 

A smile eased onto his lips, and he flicked the cigarette away, it vanishing into the void, at the ready if he wanted to use it again. Well, ‘use’ would be an overstatement. Hold uselessly in the tips of his fingers was a much better fit for the item.

 

Yes.

 

It was not like he even put the damn thing to his mouth, not once.

 

Maybe that was a lie.

 

So? So what.

 

“Hello Johan!” Corvid greeted. Egg somewhat materialized behind him. “We just wanted to check something, so if you don’t mind, do you think you can stand tall?”

 

“May I ask why?” Johan inquired, righting himself fluidly, blinking behind pink tinted lenses. Corvid began to appear flustered at this comment, not anticipating it. A blush seemed to arise on his face, but he quickly covered his cheeks. Johan blinked again, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter much to me. I was just wonderin-”

 

“He wants to know if you’re taller than him,” Egg curtly answered in Corvid’s stead. “Something about wanting to be shorted than at least one person here.”

 

“Oh!” Johan let himself smile, pulling his shoulders back so they could get an accurate measurement of his height. “By all means!”

 

A measuring tape was insinuated by his head, dragged down by Egg, Corvid holding it up.

 

They looked at the numbers.

 

“Seven feet, two inches and seven parts of an inch,” Egg pointed out, at the same time as Corvid gave a, “Ha! Two hundred twenty seven centimeters! Seven more than me!”

 

At this Johan froze, his eyes suddenly distant and his face resembling that of someone that had just made a grave mistake.

 

It was then that Egg and Corvid noticed that there was a significant difference in where their hands where on the measuring tape.

 

They looked at each other, and measured again. 

 

“This can’t be possible,” Corvid stared at where their hands were clearly separated, despite watching like hawks their measurements. “Is it?”

 

“I forgot to mention physics and other natural laws do not apply to me,” Johan muttered, scuffing his foot on the ground, his cheeks the puce of his eyes.

 

“What does that have to do with your height?” Corvid wondered aloud, staring at the two different poles they had measured the man with, despite them being of equal length, somehow… somehow… one was shorter than the other. Corvid held one up to Johan. Same height. He held the other. Same height. “How is this possible?”

 

“I don’t know,” Johan, visibly flustered, not at all used to being fussed over for such a measly thing as his height, blushing and embarrassed. Other Joeys had trained their eyes on the scene, and Johan much felt like a one man show. Rather humiliating. “I don’t question my height.”

 

“Well, you’re just a bean pole!” Joy remarked, appearing from under Johan’s arm. Confusion spread over the blue black haired man, brow furrowing as he attempted to understand his smaller companion. “Really really tall!”

 

“That we can see,” Egg replied. He looked over Johan. “But is he taller than Corvid is the question. That is what is to be answered by this, isn’t it?”

 

“Look,” the red faced, sheepish, abashed Johan cut in, his whole face tinted by his once subtle, now apparent, blushing. “If Corvid wants me to be taller, why don’t we just go by that height? Then everyone will be happy. Right?”

 

“Well,” Corvid shifted from one foot to another, looking like a sullen bird that just had a celery stalk stolen from it. “I kind of really wanted to figure out how tall you really are, Johan.”

 

“That is a mystery,” Johan rolled his eyes at himself, “That even I don’t know the answer to. To you, the fact that my height depends on the system is strange, to me, the fact that you do not cower in fear at the mention of a dog park is odd. We come from different places. So let us set aside these differences and see past them. I don’t mind being taller than you. You would like me to be so. Therefore, the only logical answer to our little mess is for me to be taller, correct?”

 

“I guess so,” Corvid remarked, letting himself smile softly, his long hair seeming to shimmer dazzlingly in the light. Johan swallowed down a lump in his throat, looking away with a blush and a smile. “Are we settled then, Johan?”

 

“It appears that we are,” the decidedly taller man agreed, smiling at Corvid, making the man grin back. Johan’s grin grew cheekily, his eyes glinting behind half moon pink lenses. “So, now that you’re officially shorter than me, my dear Córvidos, may I call you shortie?”

 

“Absolutely not.”


End file.
